Harry Potter and the Dead Bone Pulse
by Mr. ManLII
Summary: A Harry Potter story with a twist - Harry has the Shikotsumyaku ability (from Kimimaro in the Naruto series)! No other crossover elements, but expect the Shikotsumyaku to be given an alternate history for it to be tied into the HPverse and for characters' power levels and skills to be balanced to account for Harry's new ability. Note: Elements of book & movie canon are used.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer** : Harry Potter and the _Shikotsumyaku_ (and the Naruto series as a whole) belong to J.K. Rowling and Masashi Kishimoto, respectively.

 **A/N** : Since this is the beginning of the HP story in this fic, most of this chapter will be similar to the book. Still, this chapter will establish some important divergences from canon, so read on and enjoy!

•

#4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey

"Hagrid", said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. "No problems, were there?"

"Almost, Sir", replied the distraught half-giant. Poor kid was in a righ' state before I got him ter St. Mungo's. That bastard You-Know-Who broke all his bones fer Christ's sake! Good thing I got him there on time, didn't want ter know what wud've happened had I taken even bit longer. God, he was just a baby!"

"Albus", Minerva chimed in, "they used experimental magic to heal the poor child! Things that would've been better left in the Department of Mysteries!"

"Aha, but it worked, Minerva. Very quickly. And quite better than anyone would expect, if I would say so myself", said Dumbledore.

"Maybe, but those Healers died! Goodness, I'm just glad that the Potters' son is fine, now."

Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead they could see two round reddish scars.

"Is that where?" whispered Professor McGonagall.

"Yes", said Dumbledore. "He'll have those scars forever."

"Couldnt you do something about it, Dumbledore?"

"Even if I could, I wouldnt. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground. Well, give him here, Hagrid. We'd better get this over with."

"Yeah", said Hagrid in a very muffled voice, "I'd best get this bike away. G'night, Professor McGonagall, Professor Dumbledore, Sir."

"Thank you for bringing him back here, Hagrid."

Hagrid swung himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night.

"I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall", said Dumbledore, nodding to her. Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply.

Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. He clicked it once, and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of Number Four.

"Good luck, Harry", he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone.

A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley, while enduring a multitude of random mysterious jolts of pain in different bones of his body. He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "to Harry Potter, the Boy who Lived!"


	2. The Shattered Glass

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and the _Shikotsumyaku_ (and the Naruto series as a whole) belong to J.K. Rowling and Masashi Kishimoto, respectively.

•

Dursley Residence, #4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey

"Up! Get up! Now!"

Harry woke with a start. His aunt pounded on the door again.

"Up!" she screeched. Harry heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. He rolled onto his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It was terrifying. He remembered being in a bed with multiple people pointing glowing sticks at him. He saw what he thought was a human spine on a table next to the bed. And it was covered in blood.

At that moment, he felt a fleeting bout of pain on his back.

His aunt was back outside the door.

"Are you up yet?" she demanded.

"Nearly", said Harry.

When he was dressed he went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudleys birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harry, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise unless of course it involved punching somebody.

Dudleys favorite punching bag was Harry, until an incident when he suffered a strange knuckle injury one day while beating him up. Harry was crumpled into a fetal position in the corner of Dudley's room when Dudley struck one of his ribs. Despite the relatively small amount of force in Dudley's punch, said rib suddenly shot out of Harry's side and pierced Dudley. This resulted in Dudley crying out in horror and not bothering Harry anymore. Harry's uncle Vernon later punished him for his son's injury by starving him for a day and whipping him with his belt. Harry no longer had to worry about direct physical blows, but thrown objects and belt whippings became the new norm for any physical 'punishments' inflicted onto him.

Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance were the two round scars on his forehead. He had had it as long as he could remember, and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had gotten it.

"In the car crash when your parents died, she had said. And don't ask questions."

"Don't ask questions" - that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.

Half an hour later, Harry was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life. His aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Harry aside.

"I'm warning you now, boy. Any funny business, any at all, and you won't have any meals for a week."

"I won't do anything, Uncle Vernon."

But he didn't believe Harry. No one ever did.

The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry, and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn't make them happen.

Harry was often teased for having white spots on his body (which appeared and disappeared randomly), yet the first (and last) time someone tried to poke them, they were sent to the school clinic due to bleeding fingers. Upon hearing of the incident, Uncle Vernon took a hammer to beat Harry's elbow (where some of the white spots were at that day). Harry actually heard his elbow crack, but he woke up the next morning seeing that his elbow looked as if it was never beaten.

Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him to wear revolting old sweater of Dudley's (brown with orange puff balls). When she came back, she saw that the sweater was cut into shreds - cut, because the sweater was actually cut cleanly as if with a blade. This earned Harry a yelling from Aunt Petunia, and his lunch money was taken from him to contribute to another new piece of clothing for Dudley (despite the Dursleys having more than enough money).

Then there were the few fistfights that Harry got into. Harry always ended up getting the blame because while he still felt pain from punches, he actually never had any marks to show. Harry only retaliated twice, and every time he was the one who punched, his opponent bled despite not having any force. Clinical reports on his opponents' injuries seemed to indicate that they may have been cut by the knuckle bones from Harry's fists. Surprisingly, the Dursleys never made mention of these incidents. Then again, Dudley was always smart enough to at least stay out of any of these encounters despite being a big bully.

While Uncle Vernon drove everyone to the zoo, he complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, and Harry were just a few of his favorite subjects. This morning, it was people at work.

"Bunch of spineless fools, I tell you. Bloody yes-men with no original ideas to bring at the table."

"I had a dream about a spine", said Harry. "It was on a table with people poking at it with sticks."

Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beet with a mustache: "WE DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR SATANIC NIGHTMARES, BOY!"

Dudley sniggered.

"It was only a dream", said Harry.

But he wished he hadn't said anything. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than his asking questions, it was his talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't - no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon, they seemed to think he might get dangerous ideas.

•

London Zoo, Regent's Park, London

It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice pop. It wasn't bad, either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head who looked remarkably like Dudley.

Harry felt, afterward, that he should have known it was all too good to last.

After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can, but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.

Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.

"Make it move", he whined at his father. _Tap tap_. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.

"Do it again", Dudley ordered. _Tap tap tap tap tap_. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.

"Let's go", Dudley groaned. "He's boring!"

Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself - no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least he got to visit the rest of the house.

"Sorry about him", said Harry. "He doesn't understand what it's like, lying there day after day."

The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's.

Harry was quite surprised at that. He spoke again: "can you hear me?"

This time, the snake moved its head in an unnmistakable nod. Harry's eyes widened.

"It's just... that I've never talked to a snake before. Do you... do you talk to people often?"

The snake closed its eyes and shook its head. A clear " _no_."

Harry took a quick look at the label on the glass. "You're from Burma, aren't you? Was it nice there? Do you miss your family?"

The snake turned its head. It was directing Harry to look at another sign. It read: "bred in captivity."

"I see", Harry replied. "That's me as well. I never knew my parents either."

At this point, Harry heard a deafening sound behind him, making him jump. "DADDY! DADDY! COME HERE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT THIS SNAKE IS DOING!"

Dudley came waddling towards the snake as fast as he could, pushing Harry out of the way. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor.

Harry's hand slid across the glass as he fell. It made an audible scratch on the glass.

The snake headbutted the cracked portion of glass.

The area around it shatttered. It made a hole sizable enough for the snake to fit through.

Dudley didn't notice the snake move out of the glass case until its body went halfway past his feet.

Harry sat up and gasped; the great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.

As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn that he heard a low, hissing voice say: " _thankssssss_."

The keeper of the reptile house hurried to check the broken glass, only to find that the glass was suddenly whole again. His face grew pale in shock.

The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except headbutt the glass to break it and then snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg. But worst of all, for Harry at least, was Dudley calming down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it. Weren't you, Harry?"

•

Dursley Residence, #4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey

Uncle Vernon was so angry he could hardly speak. He however, managed to ask "WHAT HAPPENED?" before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.

"I swear, I don't know!", shouted Harry. "One minute, the glass suddenly shattered and then it got fixed, it was like magic!"

Uncle Vernon stood up, grabbed Harry by the hair, led him to his cupboard, opened the door and then pushed him in. "THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS MAGIC!"

 _Clank_. Uncle Vernon slammed the cupboard door shut. Harry heard his Uncle's distant voice say "NO MEALS!"

Harry lay in his dark cupboard, wishing he had a watch. He didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food.

He'd lived with the Dursleys for almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and his parents had died in that car crash. He couldn't remember being in the car when his parents had died, but he did remember feeling like he had many broken bones. Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light, followed by a dark blue jet of light, followed by the feeling of all his bones breaking and two burning pains on his forehead before he suddenly stopped feeling any pain at all. This, he supposed, was the crash, though he couldn't imagine where all the green light came from, nor the blue light. Headlights, perhaps? He couldn't remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.

The sad thing though, was that the bodily pains he felt in his memories added up to his aunt and uncle's explanation. He didn't believe them, but it didn't mean that he didn't think their story was possible.

Then again, he had already seen some impossible things.


End file.
